An organization may be divided into multiple independent lines of business which may be referred to as business channels. A business channel is a way in which a line of business makes it business capabilities available to its customers in a holistic manner. For example, a banking organization may include a first business channel for banking services (e.g., ATM, tellers, etc.), a second business channel for financial advisory services (e.g., planning, insurance, investment, annuity, etc.), and a third business channel for technology infrastructure.
In this example, the technology infrastructure business channel may support each of the other business channels in the banking organization by providing back-end software and hardware. In addition, individual business channels may develop their own front-end components to facilitate the particular activities associated with that line of business. Individual business channels may, however, utilize disparate design standards and methodologies when developing such components. As a result, the front-end components developed by individual business channels may not be compatible with the back-end components of the technology infrastructure (i.e., front-end/back-end incompatibility). Furthermore front-end components developed by one business channel may not be compatible with front-end components developed by other business channels (i.e., cross-channel incompatibility). Cross-channel incompatibility may prevent deployment of useful components deployed by one business channel to other business channels, resulting in redundant efforts to develop components with similar functionality that are compatible at other business channels.
Therefore a need exists for a new approach to technology infrastructure in enterprise-wide computing systems is needed.